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GIFT  OF 


THE  MINISTER'S  SON 


THE  MINISTER'S  SON 

A  RECORD  OF  HIS  ACHIEVEMENTS 


By 
Clarence  Edward  Noble  Macartney 

Minister  of  The  Arch  Street  Presbyterian  Church 
Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania 


EAKINS,  PALMER  &  HARRAR 
PHILADELPHIA 


Copyright,  1917 

by 
Eakins,  Palmer  &  Harrar 

Philadelphia 


To  WOODROW  WILSON 

Son  of  a  Presbyterian  Minister 

Spokesman  for  the  Soul  of  America 


425375 


THE  MINISTER'S  SON 


A  FEW  summers  ago,  engaged  in  historical 
research  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  that 
star-lit  and  mountain-walled  abbey  of 
the  Confederacy,  I  went  to  call  at  the  home  of 
the  venerable  Dr.  Graham,  pastor  emeritus  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  at  Winchester,  Vir- 
ginia. It  was  in  his  home  that  "Stonewall" 
Jackson  lived  when  stationed  in  the  Shenan- 
doah Valley.  I  remember  him  saying  of 
Jackson  that  before  all  else  he  was  a  Christian. 
That  was  the  first  business  of  his  life;  after 
that,  a  soldier.  I  spent  an  interesting  hour 
with  that  delightful  old  man  as  he  made  men- 
tion of  leading  personalities  before,  since,  and 
at  the  time  of  the  Civil  War.  When  he  learned 
that  I  had  studied  at  Princeton,  he  spoke  of 
Woodrow  Wilson,  then  being  mentioned  as  a 
candidate  for  the  Governorship  of  New  Jersey. 
He  had  known  his  father,  the  Reverend 
Joseph  R.  Wilson,  D.  D.,  intimately,  and  to 
his  memory  he  paid  this  tribute:  "Take  him 
all  in  all,  of  all  the  good  and  great  men  I  have 
known  in  my  long  life,  he  was  the  best." 

7 


The  The  son  of  that  Presbyterian  minister  was, 

'  on  the  4th  of  March,  inaugurated  for  the 
second  time  as  President  of  the  United  States, 
having  been  re-elected  to  that  office  by  the 
most  remarkable  popular  approval  ever  given 
to  any  candidate,  and  that  in  spite  of  a  cam- 
paign of  vituperation  and  abuse  unprecedented 
in  the  history  of  the  nation. 

The  elevation  of  ministers'  sons  to  the  high 
office  of  the  Presidency  brings  up  that  old  libel 
about  the  character  of  minister's  sons.  Are 
these  men  striking  exceptions?  Are  ministers' 
sons  as  a  rule  sons  of  Belial,  belonging  to  the 
low  order  of  Hophni  and  Phineas?  Charles 
Lamb  wrote  a  number  of  essays  on  popular 
fallacies.  Among  the  fallacies  which  he  ex- 
posed are  the  following:  "That  a  bully  is 
always  a  coward" ;  "that  you  must  love  me  and 
love  my  dog";  "that  we  should  rise  with  the 
lark  and  lie  down  with  the  lamb";  "that  ill- 
gotten  gains  never  prosper,"  and  "that  enough 
is  as  good  as  a  feast."  We  could  wish  that  he 
had  added  one  more — that  ministers'  sons  are 
generally  scoundrels.  A  long  time  ago  Thomas 
Fuller  wrote:  "There  goeth  forth  a  common 
report,  no  less  uncharitable  than  untrue,  as  if 
clergymen's  sons  were  generally  unfortunate 
like  the  sons  of  Eli,  dissolute  in  their  lives  and 


doleful  in  their  deaths."  He  goes  on  to  make 
due  allowance  for  "Benjamins"  among  the  sons  Minister's 
of  ministers,  that  is,  sons  of  their  old  age,  and 
hence,  "cockered"  and  humored  by  their  an- 
cient sires.  But  his  conclusion  is  that  "clergy- 
men's children  have  not  been  more  unfortu- 
nate, but  more  observed  than  the  children  of 
the  parents  of  other  professions."  This  last 
observation,  coupled  with  a  possible  desire  to 
disparage  the  ministry,  is  the  sole  basis  for  a 
gross  fallacy,  as  contrary  to  reason  as  it  is 
contrary  to  fact.  We  can  all  think  of  minis- 
ters' sons  who  were  scallawags,  no  credit  to  a 
minister  or  to  any  other  man.  But  if  the 
general  moral  and  intellectual  standard  of 
ministers'  sons  is  not  high,  then  all  principles 
of  heredity,  education  and  environment  are 
overthrown.  Adam  begat  a  son  in  his  own 
likeness,  and  most  ministers  do  the  same. 

There  are,  indeed,  exceptions  both  as  to  the 
minister's  home  and  as  to  the  minister's  son. 
There  are  ministers'  homes  which  are  not  cal- 
culated to  produce  God-fearing  or  useful  men 
and  women.  I  read  recently  of  a  minister's 
home  where  the  father  and  mother  engaged 
daily  in  violent  altercations,  where  every  room 
was  impregnated  with  the  smoke  of  cigarettes, 
and  where  a  family  altar  was  as  unknown  as 

9 


T^e  in  the  hut  of  a  Hottentot.    When  I  thought  of 

Minister's  that  and  contrasted  it  with  what  I  had  seen 
in  my  own  home,  what  many  of  you  saw  in 
your  homes,  a  godly  father  and  godly  mother, 
working  and  praying  together  for  their  Lord 
and  their  children,  where  no  word  of  temper 
and  no  act  of  violence  was  ever  heard  or  seen, 
and  where  the  Christian  life  was  not  only 
taught  out  of  Psalm  book  and  catechism,  and 
Bible  and  commentary,  but  was  itself  drawn 
out  in  living  and  unforgetable  characters  of 
beauty  and  power  which  still  shine  as  stars 
in  heaven  to  comfort,  guide  and  cheer  us  on 
our  way — when  I  thought  of  that  I  said  to 
myself,  "Good  God !  how  terrible !" 

There  are  sad  and  terrible  exceptions,  too, 
as  to  the  sons  of  the  minister.  Many  a  noble 
man  of  God  who  has  walked  humbly  with  his 
God,  like  Samuel  has  had  to  drink  the  bitter 
cup  of  disappointment  in  sons  who  dishonored 
man  and  God,  and  many  a  broken-hearted 
father  has  gone  into  his  chamber  over  the  gate 
and  has  uttered  that  bitter  cry  of  David,  "O, 
Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!  My  son,  my  son, 
Absalom!  Would  God  I  had  died  for  thee, 
O,  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!"  But,  thank 
God,  both  the  kind  of  home  I  have  just  pic- 
tured and  the  sons  I  have  just  described  are 

10 


rare,  though  striking,  exceptions.    Most  sons  of  The 
ministers,    however   worthy   or   unworthy   of  Ministers 
their  fathers,  think  of  those  fathers  as  men  w 
who  served  God  here  upon  earth  and  who  still 
serve  him  yonder.     They  would  say  of  them 
as    Matthew    Arnold    said    of    his    minister- 
father  : 

"Oh,  strong  soul,  by  what  shore 
Tarriest  thou  now?    For  that  force 
Surely,  has  not  been  left  vain! 
Somewhere,  surely,  afar 
In  the  sounding  labor-house  vast 
Of  being,  is  practised  that  strength, 
Zealous,  beneficent,  firm! 
Yes,  in  some  far  shining  sphere, 
Conscious  or  not  of  the  past, 
Still  thou  performest  the  word 
Of  the  Spirit  in  whom  thou  dost  live — 
Prompt,  unwearied,  as  here." 

Albert,  the  son  of  a  minister,  was  intensely 
afraid  of  thunder.  One  summer  afternoon  he 
wandered  away  from  the  house  and  was  caught 
in  a  severe  electric  storm.  His  father  saw  him 
running  towards  the  house  with  a  terrified 
expression  on  his  face  and  his  lips  in  notice- 
able movement.  "What  were  you  saying, 
Albert?"  asked  his  father.  "I  was  reminding 
God  that  I  am  a  minister's  son,"  was  the 
breathless  reply.  We  waive  the  question  of 

11 


The  divine   favor,   but   the   facts   are   at   hand   to 

Minister's  demonstrate  that  human  society  at  least  has 
shown  great  favor  to  the  sons  of  ministers. 
The  clerical  family  has  ever  been  one  of  the 
chief  glories  of  Protestantism.  We  have  no 
thought  of  opening  an  old  discussion  concern- 
ing the  differing  opinions  of  two  great 
branches  of  the  Christian  Church.  It  may  be 
that  the  voluntary  celibate  may  rise  to  a  higher 
plane  of  sacrifice  and  devotion  than  the  minis- 
ter with  a  family.  There  have  been  eminent 
Protestants  who  have  renounced  the  right  of 
marriage.  Among  them  we  find  such  names 
as  Archbishop  Leighton,  Samuel  Hopkins, 
William  Muhlenberg,  author  of  "I  would  not 
live  alway,"  and  the  historian  Neander.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say  that  the  reformers  cannot  have 
been  unmindful  of  the  example  of  patriarchs, 
priests  and  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  and 
the  apostles  of  the  New  Testament.  Peter  was 
married,  at  least  he  had  a  mother-in-law,  and 
Paul  claimed  the  right  to  do  as  Peter  had 
done.  With  this  ancient  precedent  and  sanc- 
tion, the  reformers  cannot  have  been  much 
troubled  in  conscience  when  they  departed 
from  the  rule  of  one  man,  Hildebrand,  and  took 
to  themselves  wives.  Luther  must  have  had 
more  serious  reasons  for  renouncing  the  state 

12 


of  celibacy  than  those  which  he  himself  gives,  The 
viz.,  to  please  his  father,  tease  the  Pope  and 
vex  the  devil.  At  all  events,  his  home  life  was  v 
bright  and  happy,  an  earnest  and  a  type  of 
the  clerical  family  which  he  did  so  much  to 
found.  His  letters  to  his  children  are  models 
of  what  a  father's  letters  to  his  children  ought 
to  be.  Calvin  was  perhaps  more  discreet  in 
his  marriage  than  Luther.  He  may  have  been 
thinking  of  the  sneer  of  Erasmus.  "Some 
speak  of  the  Lutheran  cause  as  a  tragedy,  but 
to  me  it  appears  rather  as  a  comedy,  for  it 
always  ends  in  a  wedding."  When  Calvin 
married  a  demure  widow  of  Strassburg  he 
could  still  make  his  boast  that  he  had  not  as- 
sailed Rome  as  the  Greeks  assailed  Troy,  for 
the  sake  of  a  woman.  That  these  early  re- 
formers succeeded  in  harmonizing  the  life  of 
the  priesthood  with  the  life  of  the  family  has 
been  for  the  glory  of  the  Church  and  the 
untold  enrichment  of  civilization. 

In  the  chapter  on  Luther,  Dr.  Ernest 
Richard,  in  his  "History  of  German  Civiliza- 
tion," says:  "By  his  marriage  he  simply  did 
himself  what  he  had  preached  to  others  for  a 
long  time.  He  maintained  that  the  family 
was  the  foundation  of  social  life,  and  by 
marrying  himself  he  removed  the  stain  put  on 

13 


The  woman  and  the  family  by  the  law  of  celibacy, 

Minister's  giving  again  this  recognition  to  woman's  po- 
sition which  the  Germanic  peoples  claim  with 
such  pride  and  affection  as  peculiar  to  them- 
selves from  the  beginning,  and  which  their 
Roman  neighbors  do  not  seem  to  be  able  to 
appreciate.  But  no  matter  how  much  they 
may  privately  sneer  at  it,  or  publicly  ridicule 
it,  the  Germans  know  that  this  private  life, 
which  spreads  its  light  within  the  four  walls 
of  the  home,  is  one  of  the  deep  roots  of  their 
national  strength.  As  far  as  Protestant  coun- 
tries are  concerned,  and  especially  Protestant 
Germany,  this  abolition  of  celibacy  and  the 
emphasizing  of  the  importance  and  sacredness 
of  the  family  life  on  the  part  of  the  clergymen 
has  not  only  had  a  general  ethical  effect,  but 
has  strengthened  the  forces  that  make  for 
higher  culture  in  a  way  that  is  often  over- 
looked. In  the  atmosphere  of  the  Protestant 
parsonage,  with  its  high  idealism,  in  spite  of 
occasional  bigotry,  pedantry  and  phariseeism, 
with  its  sense  of  duty  based  on  self-repect,  its 
intellectual  refinements,  its  material  unpre- 
tentiousness,  in  short,  with  that  whole  spiritual 
inheritance  of  Luther  and  his  companions,  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  parsons  grow  up 
and  their  importance  in  the  culture-develop- 
14 


ment  of  the  nation  can  be  easily  appreciated,  The 
if  we  consider  only  superficially  how  many  of  Minister's 
its  intellectual  leaders  have  come  from  their 
ranks,  or  if  we  compare  what  percentage  they 
furnish  to  the  learned  professions.  These 
'pastors'  children'  in  a  Protestant  population 
cannot  be  balanced  by  the  Catholic  clergy  in 
spite  of  equal  intellectual  attainments  and  per- 
haps— because  undivided — greater  devotion  to 
their  office.  It  is  not  necessary  to  remind  the 
readers  of  this  book  of  our  own  American  his- 
tory where  similar  observations  can  be  made." 
The  minister's  home  is  usually  a  home  of 
intelligence  and  refinement  without  ease  and 
luxury  which  sap  the  foundations  of  character. 
His  home  is  an  answer  to  a  wise  man's  prayer, 
"Give  me  neither  riches  nor  poverty."  He 
never  gets  riches,  sometimes  he  gets  poverty, 
but  more  often  the  lines  fall  unto  him  in  the 
pleasant  places  which  lie  between  those  two 
extremes.  However  limited,  the  library  of  the 
minister's  son  will  have  those  few  books  which 
have  been  the  inevitable  companions  of  genius 
and  attainment — Plutarch's  Lives,  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  -ffisop's  Fables  and  the  Bible.  The 
son  of  the  minister  lives  in  an  atmosphere  of 
moral  earnestness,  intellectual  activity  and 
sacrifice  and  service  for  that  which  is  highest. 

15 


The  If  any  home  ought  to  send  forth  a  goodly  line 

Minister's  of  stalwart  sons,  it  is  the  home  of  the  minister. 
Oliver  Goldsmith,  himself  a  minister's  son, 
opens  the  "Vicar  of  Wakefield"  with  these 
words :  "I  was  ever  of  opinion  that  the  honest 
man  who  married,  and  brought  up  a  large 
family,  did  more  service  than  he  who  con- 
tinued single  and  only  talked  of  population; 
from  this  motive  I  had  scarcely  taken  orders 
a  year  before  I  chose  my  wife  as  she  did  her 
wedding  gown,  not  for  a  fine  glossy  face,  but 
for  such  qualities  as  would  wear  well." 

With  such  serious  purpose  and  intent  the 
founders  of  clerical  households  have  exalted 
religion  and  adorned  society.  Goethe,  when  a 
young  man,  fell  in  love  with  Frederike  Brion, 
the  attractive  daughter  of  the  pastor  of  Sessen- 
hiem.  It  was  the  purest  and  strongest  love  of 
his  passionate  career,  and  his  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  the  life  of  that  clerical  household  led 
him  to  write :  "A  Protestant  country  pastor  is 
perhaps  the  most  beautiful  topic  for  a  modern 
idyl;  he  appears  like  Melchizedek,  a  priest 
and  king  in  one  person.  He  is  usually  asso- 
ciated by  occupation  and  outward  condition 
with  the  most  innocent  conceivable  estate  on 
earth,  that  of  the  farmer;  he  is  father,  master 
of  his  house,  and  thoroughly  identified  with  his 

16 


congregation.  On  this  pure,  beautiful,  earthly  The 
foundation  rests  his  higher  vocation;  to  intro- 
duce  men  into  life,  to  care  for  their  spiritual  fc 
education,  to  bless,  to  instruct,  to  strengthen, 
to  comfort  them  in  all  the  epochs  of  life,  and, 
if  the  comfort  for  the  present  is  not  sufficient, 
to  cheer  them  with  the  assured  hope  of  a  more 
happy  future."  "The  one  idyl  of  modern  life," 
Coleridge  termed  the  ministerial  family  life, 
and  Wordsworth  thought  it  worthy  of  praise  in 
his  "Ecclesiastical  Sonnets,"  where  he  sings : 

"A  genial  hearth,  a  hospitable  board, 
And  a  refined  rusticity,  belong 
To  the  neat  mansion,  where,  his  flock  among, 
The  learned  pastor  dwells,  their  watchful  Lord." 

In  1750  Justus  Moser  calculated  that  in  the 
two  centuries  after  the  Reformation,  more 
than  ten  millions  of  human  beings  in  all  lands 
owed  their  existence  to  the  clerical  family.  In 
the  century  and  a  half  since  he  made  his  esti- 
mate the  number  have  very  likely  trebled. 
And  what  influence  have  these  millions  of 
ministers'  children  exerted  upon  civilization? 
To  judge  of  this  a  brief  study  of  eminent 
names  in  Protestant  countries  is  most  illumi- 
nating. 

In  the  "Dictionary  of  National  Biography," 
England,  there  are  1,270  names  of  eminent  men 

17 


The  who  were  sons  of  clergymen.    There  are  510 

Minister's  names  of  famous  men  who  were  sons  of  law- 
yers, and  350  who  were  sons  of  physicians. 
In  this  single  compilation  of  great  names  in 
English  history,  there  are  410  more  sons  of 
ministers  than  sons  of  doctors  and  lawyers  to- 
gether. In  a  recent  issue  of  "Who's  Who," 
for  America,  out  of  nearly  12,000  names,  al- 
most 1,000  are  sons  of  clergymen,  a  number 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  whole  number  of 
ministers  in  the  population  of  the  country. 
According  to  that  standard,  there  should  have 
been  not  more  than  fifty  of  these  famous  men 
the  sons  of  clergymen. 

Time  would  fail  to  tell  of  all  the  notable 
men  in  all  departments  of  human  activity  who 
were  sons  of  ministers.  We  mention  only  a 
few  of  these.  In  science,  Agassiz,  Fabricius, 
Jenner,  Linnaeus,  Olbers,  Fields,  Morse,  Ber- 
zelius,  Euler;  in  history  and  philosophy, 
George  John  Romannes,  John  G.  Wilkin- 
son, Hallam,  Hobbes,  Froude,  Sloane,  Park- 
man,  Bancroft,  Schnelling,  Schliermacher, 
Nietzsche,  Muller ;  in  art,  Reynolds  and  Chris- 
topher Wren;  in  philanthropy,  Clarkson  and 
Granville  Sharp,  the  anti-slavery  agitators,  and 
Cecil  Rhodes;  in  poetry,  Lessing,  Tennyson, 
Ben  Jonson,  Cowper,  Goldsmith,  Thomson, 

18 


Coleridge,  Addison,  Young,  John  Keble,  Mat-  The 
thew  Arnold;  among  essayists,  Emerson,  Minister's 
Richter,  Hazlitt;  among  novelists,  Charles 
Kingsley,  Henry  James.  But  most  remarkable 
is  the  long  list  of  celebrated  divines  who  were 
themselves  sons  of  ministers.  Among  such  are 
these  names :  Swedenborg,  the  seer,  Jonathan 
Edwards,  Archibald  Hodge,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  Lyman  Abbott,  Charles  Spurgeon, 
Increase  and  Cotton  Mather,  Matthew  Henry, 
the  famous  commentator,  Frederick  D. 
Maurice,  Reginald  Campbell,  Lightfoot,  John 
and  Charles  Wesley,  Mansell,  Dorner  and 
Dean  Stanley,  or  in  making  mention  of  the 
sons  of  ministers  who  have  risen  to  high  place, 
let  us  not  forget  their  sisters,  most  of  them  un- 
known to  fame,  but  who  cheered,  encouraged 
and  inspired.  A  few  of  them  are,  however, 
themselves  among  the  immortals:  Charlotte 
Bronte,  Jane  Austen,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 
Francis  Havergal,  Anne  Steel  and  Mary 
Wooley.  Seven  of  the  mistresses  of  the  White 
House  have  been  the  daughters  of  clergymen; 
Abigail  Adams,  wife  of  one  President  and 
mother  of  another,  Abigail  Fillmore,  Jane 
Appleton  Pierce,  daughter  of  President  Apple- 
ton,  of  Bowdoin  College,  and  the  death  of 
whose  son  in  a  railway  accident  before  the 

19 


The  mother's  eyes,  a  short  time  previous  to  the 

Minister's  inauguration  of  her  husband,  clouded  with  sor- 
row his  term  of  office;  Mrs.  McElroy,  sister 
of  President  Arthur;  Elizabeth  Cleveland, 
sister  of  Grover  Cleveland;  Caroline  Scott 
Harrison,  daughter  of  Dr.  John  W.  Scott,  and 
Helen  Axson  Wilson. 

In  our  American  history  the  Field  family 
is  a  noble  example  of  the  influence  of  clerical 
households.  The  father,  the  Rev.  David  D. 
Field,  was  a  minister  of  the  Congregational 
Church.  One  son,  David  Dudley,  was  the 
eminent  jurist  and  law  reformer;  another, 
Stephen  J.,  was  an  associate  justice  of  the  Su- 
preme Court;  a  third  son,  Henry  M.,  was  a 
useful  clergyman  and  author;  and  the  fourth 
son  was  Cyrus  W.,  who  laid  the  Atlantic 
cable. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  clerical  fami- 
lies is  that  of  the  Woodbridges.  The  Rev. 
John  Woodbridge,  1493,  was  a  follower  of 
Wyclif.  His  line  can  be  traced  through  nine 
successive  generations,  and  every  generation 
but  one  has  its  representative  in  the  ministry. 

I  have  taken  the  pains  to  communicate  with 
some  of  our  Presbyterian  Seminaries  to  ascer- 
tain the  proportion  of  students  for  the  ministry 
who  are  themselves  sons  of  ministers.  In  the 

20 


Presbyterian  Church,  South,  out  of  a  list  kept 
of  868  candidates  for  the  ministry,  415  were 
sons  of  farmers,  84  sons  of  merchants,  27  sons 
of  laborers,  17  sons  of  lawyers,  12  sons  of  phy- 
sicians, and  120  sons  of  ministers.  Thus  13  per 
cent,  were  sons  of  ministers.  In  the  Western 
Theological  Seminary,  out  of  74  students  en- 
rolled, nine  are  sons  of  ministers,  or  12  per 
cent.;  at  the  German  Seminary,  Dubuque, 
Iowa,  out  of  16  enrolled,  two,  or  12  per  cent.; 
at  Union  Seminary,  Richmond,  Virginia,  out 
of  92  enrolled,  13  sons  of  ministers,  or  14  per 
cent.;  at  the  San  Francisco  Seminary,  San 
Anselmo,  California,  out  of  42  enrolled,  five 
are  sons  of  ministers,  or  11  per  cent.;  at 
McCormick  Seminary,  12  per  cent.;  Kentucky 
Theological  Seminary,  one  in  sixteen;  at 
Princeton,  out  of  193  enrolled,  36,  or  19  per 
cent.;  at  Union  Seminary,  New  York,  40  out 
of  120,  or  33  1-3  per  cent.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  the  percentage  of  students  for  the  ministry 
who  are  themselves  sons  of  clergymen  is 
much  lower  than  in  earlier  days  when  only  a 
few  professions  were  open  to  men  of  educa- 
tion. Nevertheless,  the  manse  is  still  doing 
more  than  its  share  to  send  men  into  the 
ministry.  I  heard  recently  of  a  father  who 
boasted  that  no  son  of  his  should  ever  follow 

21 


The  him  into  the  ministry.     God  pity  the  Church 

Minister's  j£  the  ^ay  should  ever  come  when  that  minister 
should  be  representative  of  the  whole  ministry, 
for  a  ministry  that,  because  of  hard  knocks  in 
the  Master's  service,  dare  not  repeat  to  its  own 
children  the  challenge  of  the  Church  and  can- 
not live  before  them  the  godly  life  has  lost  its 
vision  and  is  anointing  itself  for  the  day  of 
burial.  Over  its  portals  is  written  that  symbol 
of  quenched  light  and  departed  fires, 
"Ichabod!" 

On  the  bloody  fields  of  Europe  the  minis- 
ter's son  has  played  a  heroic  part.  Some  of 
the  most  eminent  ministers  of  Great  Britain 
have  lost  sons  in  the  war.  Among  them  are 
Alexander  Whyte,  James  Stalker,  George 
Adam  Smith,  John  A.  Hutton  and  F.  B. 
Meyer.  The  minister's  home  has  never  shrunk 
from  that  "last  full  measure  of  devotion"  for 
which,  alas!  our  world  has  called  so  often. 

Many  of  the  moderators  of  the  General  As- 
sembly of  the  Presbyterian  Church  have  been 
sons  of  ministers.  John  Witherspoon,  presi- 
dent of  Princeton,  signer  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  the  first  moderator  of  the 
General  Assembly  in  1789.  Among  others  have 
been  Robert  Smith,  1790;  Samuel  Stanhope 
Smith,  1799;  president  of  Princeton,  John 
22 


Blair  Smith,  president  of  Union  College,  1798; 
Robert  Davidson,  president  of  Transylvania  Minister's 
University,  1796;  William  Mackay  Tennent,  * 
1797;  J.  B.  Romeyn,  1810;  Obadiah  Jennings, 
1822;  Ashabel  Green,  1824;  Ezra  Stiles  Ely, 
1828;  James  Hoge,  1832.  Robert  J.  Brecken- 
ridge,  moderator  in  1841,  the  same  who  pre- 
sided at  the  Democratic  convention  which 
nominated  Douglas  at  Baltimore  in  1860,  was 
not  the  son  of  a  minister,  but  one  of  the  four 
sons  of  Hon.  John  Breckenridge,  of  Kentucky, 
and  was,  as  his  brother  after  him,  pastor  of 
the  Second  Church  of  Baltimore.  In  1845  he 
became  President  of  Jefferson  College  at  Can- 
nonsburg.  Another  brother  was  William 
Lewis  Breckenridge,  president  of  Centre  Col- 
lege, Kentucky.  Of  him  it  was  written,  "What 
men  thought  of  him  strengthened  all  our  minis- 
ters, of  every  Church,  in  the  confidence  of  the 
community."  At  the  time  of  the  Civil  War, 
the  family  was  divided,  one  Breckenridge 
being  a  distinguished  general  in  the  Southern 
army  and  another  in  the  Union  army.  Follow- 
ing once  more  the  list  of  moderators  we  find 
among  the  sons  of  ministers,  Gardiner  Spring, 
1843;  Edwin  Humphrey,  1851;  Aaron  Leland, 
1850;  Zephaniah  Moore  Humphrey,  1879; 
William  C.  Young,  1892;  William  H.  Roberts, 

23 


The  stated  clerk  of  the  General  Assembly;  James 

'  Moffat'  President  of  Washington  and  Jeffer- 
son College,  who  followed  his  father  in  the 
pastorate  of  the  First  Church,  Wheeling,  West 
Virginia;  Henry  Van  Dyke,  Ambassador  to 
the  Netherlands,  son  of  a  moderator  of  the 
Assembly  and  father  of  a  minister,  and  Dr.  J. 
Ross  Stevenson,  president  of  Princeton  Theo- 
logical Seminary.  The  most  interesting  family 
in  the  list  of  the  moderators  is  that  of  the 
Smiths.  The  father  was  moderator  in  1790;  a 
son,  Samuel  Stanhope  Smith,  of  Princeton 
College,  in  1799;  and  a  second  son,  John  Blair 
Smith,  of  Union  College,  was  moderator  in 
1798. 

If  space  permitted,  an  interesting  catalogue 
of  the  sons  of  missionaries  could  be  compiled. 
A  study  of  the  missionary  families  shows  that 
more  of  the  children  of  missionaries  follow 
in  the  work  of  their  fathers  than  sons  of 
ministers  in  the  home  lands.  We  might  men- 
tion the  Scudders,  the  Kellogs  and  the  Laba- 
rees.  When  the  torch  which  illuminated  the 
dark  mists  of  heathenism  fell  from  the  hands 
of  that  noble  company  of  men  who  first  car- 
ried the  Gospel  to  foreign  lands,  it  was  lifted 
again  by  sons  who  were  not  unworthy  of  their 
apostolic  sires. 
24 


It  is  probable  that  ministers'  sons  have  ex-  The 
erted  more  influence  in  the  United  States  than  Minister's 
in  any  other  country.  Among  teachers,  law- 
yers, doctors,  scientists,  men  of  business,  and 
in  the  Church,  there  are  a  great  host  who  have 
been  the  sons  of  the  manse.  Of  the  more 
notable  men  in  our  history  who  were  sons  of 
ministers,  we  find  in  political  life,  Wilson, 
Hughes,  Cleveland,  Clay,  Buchanan,  Arthur, 
Quay,  Morton,  Beveridge,  Whitman,  Sulzer, 
and  the  lamented  Dolliver,  of  Iowa;  among 
jurists,  Field  and  Brewer;  among  educators, 
Faunce,  James,  Carroll,  Lounsbury,  Stockton 
Axson,  Giddings;  in  history  and  literature, 
Sloane,  Parkman,  Bancroft,  Holmes,  Emerson, 
Henry  James,  Lowell,  Gilder,  Van  Dyke;  in 
invention  and  science,  Cyrus  W.  Field,  Samuel 
F.  Morse,  Agassiz  and  Ottmar  Mergenthalen 
inventor  of  the  linotype;  in  music,  De  Koven 
and  Louise  Homer;  in  the  Church,  Beecher, 
Alexander,  Hodge,  Abbott,  Jonathan  Edwards ; 
in  philosophy,  James.  In  the  Hall  of  Fame, 
fifty-one  famous  Americans  are  honored.  Of 
these,  ten  are  the  children  of  ministers: 
Aggasiz,  Beecher,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 
Henry  Clay,  Jonathan  Edwards,  Emerson, 
Lowell,  Morse,  Bancroft,  Holmes. 

25 


The  The  Protestant  ministry  is  justified  of  her 

Minister's  children.  Like  the  fabled  Pactolus  of  Syria, 
whose  sands  carried  the  wealth  of  Croesus,  the 
ministerial  family  has  flowed  down  the  val- 
leys of  our  national  life  weighted  with  the 
golden  dust  of  achievement  and  renown. 
Nearly  half  a  century  ago  there  appeared  in 
one  of  our  leading  scientific  monthlies  an  ar- 
ticle by  one  of  the  De  Candolles,  the  famous 
Swiss  botanists.  His  proposition  was  that 
European  scientists  of  the  first  rank  were  as 
numerous  among  Roman  Catholics  as  among 
Protestants,  provided  that  from  the  Protestant 
group  we  eliminate  the  sons  of  clergymen.  In 
any  comparison  of  tables  of  distinction  in  sci- 
ence, letters,  art,  invention,  statesmanship,  the 
names  of  the  sons  of  clergymen  would  have  to 
be  eliminated  if  the  comparison  were  to  be  fair 
and  not  odious.  That  confession  of  De  Can- 
dolle,  that  sons  of  ministers  will  excel  in  any 
group  of  workers,  suggests  an  inquiry  as  to 
the  reasons  for  the  too  plainly  evident  superi- 
ority of  men  who  have  been  trained  in  the 
homes  of  ministers.  Some  attribute  it  to 
books.  The  late  Judge  Hornblower,  whose 
father  was  at  one  time  minister  of  the  First 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Paterson,  N.  J.,  where 
I  had  the  honor  to  serve  for  nine  years,  once 
26 


wrote  to  me  on  this  subject  and  said,  "I  know 
that  in  looking  back  on  my  boyhood,  the  hours  Minister's 
spent  by  me  in  my  father's  library  gave  me  a 
taste  for  reading  which  has  never  deserted 
me."  A  former  Attorney-General  of  the 
United  States,  John  W.  Griggs,  discussing  this 
subject  with  me,  said,  "I  assume  one  reason  is 
that  the  minister  always  managed  if  possible 
to  give  his  sons  what  is  called  a  'college  edu- 
cation/ One  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  and 
even  fifty  years  ago,  that  meant  a  great  deal 
more  than  it  means  now.  Another  reason  may 
have  been  that  as  clergymen  do  not  usually 
possess  enough  wealth  to  allow  their  children 
to  live  in  idleness,  their  sons  had  the  spur  of 
necessity,  which,  added  to  that  element  of  self- 
respect  and  education  rather  above  the  ordi- 
nary, sent  them  ahead  in  the  world  faster  and 
in  proportion  more  numerously  than  others." 
All  the  reasons  hinted  at  above — a  home 
with  neither  riches  nor  poverty,  books  to  read, 
few  but  good,  the  spur  of  necessity  in  making 
a  way  in  the  world,  the  old-fashioned  college 
education — undoubtedly  have  played  their  part 
in  the  remarkable  careers  of  ministers'  sons. 
But  the  chief  thing  I  think  has  been  left  un- 
mentioned:  that  is,  the  Christian  training  of 
the  home.  I  recall  now  having  once  seen  a 

27 


T^e  play  by  Ibsen,  "The  House  of  Rosmersholm," 

Minister's  the  prevailing  idea  being  the  inability  of  a 
man  to  do  wrong  and  live  happily  in  his  wrong 
when  he  had  back  of  him  the  admonition  and 
the  example  of  a  good  and  noble  house.  Hands 
out  of  the  past  stretched  forth  to  keep  that 
man  from  enjoying  the  vineyard  of  evil.  In  a 
like  sense,  I  imagine  that  men  are  subject, 
more  than  we  can  exactly  estimate,  to  the  in- 
fluences of  the  past.  I  once  knew  a  minister's 
son  at  college  who  went  into  a  saloon  and 
stepped  up  to  the  bar  with  his  fellow-students 
and  called  for  a  drink,  but  just  as  he  was  lift- 
ing the  glass  to  his  lips,  the  thought  flashed 
across  his  mind,  "What  if  father  saw  me 
here!"  That  thought  put  an  end  to  his  saloon 
experiences.  Men  do  not  easily  and  naturally 
develop  into  pure  and  noble  characters;  it  is 
done  by  striving,  by  prayer,  by  vigilance,  and 
in  the  building  up  of  this  house  of  the  soul, 
who  shall  weigh  the  influence  or  measure  the 
assistance  that  comes  from  the  memory  of  a 
father  who  walked  before  God  and  proclaimed 
his  truth  to  the  people? 


28 


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